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MindReader Weekly - 91st - Ideologues beat idealists and Are people "normal"?

If you can‘t get any of the mentioned papers, please, contact me.

Potentially MindShifting Papers:

• Sarah Roberts (2012):

[5IE405, 5IE412] “Higher levels of women’s alcohol consumption have long been attributed to increases in gender equality. However, only limited research examines the relationship between gender equality and alcohol consumption. This study examined associations between five measures of state-level gender equality and five alcohol consumption measures in the United States. Survey data regarding men’s and women’s alcohol consumption from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were linked to state-level indicators of gender equality. Gender equality indicators included state-level women’s socioeconomic status, gender equality in socioeconomic status, reproductive rights, policies relating to violence against women, and women’s political participation. Alcohol consumption measures included past 30-day drinker status, drinking frequency, binge drinking, volume, and risky drinking. Other than drinker status, consumption is measured for drinkers only. Multi-level linear and logistic regression models adjusted for individual demographics as well as state-level income inequality, median income, and % Evangelical Protestant/Mormon. All gender equality indicators were positively associated with both women’s and men’s drinker status in models adjusting only for individual-level covariates; associations were not significant in models adjusting for other state-level characteristics. All other associations between gender equality and alcohol consumption were either negative or non-significant for both women and men in models adjusting for other state-level factors. Findings do not support the hypothesis that higher levels of gender equality are associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption by women or by men. In fact, most significant findings suggest that higher levels of equality are associated with less alcohol consumption overall.”

• Christopher T. Dawes et al. (2012):

[5IE413] “Individuals are willing to sacrifice their own resources to promote equality in groups. These costly choices promote equality and are associated with behavior that supports cooperation in humans, but little is known about the brain processes involved. We use functional MRI to study egalitarian preferences based on behavior observed in the “random income game.” In this game, subjects decide whether to pay a cost to alter group members’ randomly allocated incomes. We specifically examine whether egalitarian behavior is associated with neural activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the insular cortex, two regions that have been shown to be related to social preferences. Consistent with previous studies, we find significant activation in both regions; however, only the insular cortex activations are significantly associated with measures of revealed and expressed egalitarian preferences elicited outside the scanner. These results are consistent with the notion that brain mechanisms involved in experiencing the emotional states of others underlie egalitarian behavior in humans. “

• Pamela Morrison et al. (2012):

“Women’s alcohol treatment usually includes anger management, predicated on the hypothesis that anger increases their drinking. Studies show strong association between anger and drinking but to date there is no laboratory support for this hypothesis. We examined effects of a “female-specific” anger provocation on young adult women’s drinking behavior by randomly assigning 30 women (age 21–30) to one of two conditions: Provocation (n = 15) or Non-Provocation (n = 15). In the Provocation condition, a female confederate was both annoying and condescending to the participant for 8 min. A manipulation check showed heightened anger and hostility (but not anxiety or depression) in the Provocation participants. In a subsequent taste-task, all participants could drink placebo “beer” and ginger ale. When the data analysis controlled for participants’ baseline negative emotions, Provocation participants consumed more “beer” (M = 172.33 ml, SD = 78.90) than did Non-Provocation participants (M = 118.60 ml, SD = 75.74) (p < .04), with no differences in ginger ale consumption. Results support a causal relationship between young women’s anger and their specific choice to drink alcohol.”

• Adam Hoffer, Adam Pellillo (2012):

[5IE405, 5IE415] “This article investigates why some US states spend so comparatively little on Tobacco Control Funding (TCF). We find that cross-state variation in spending on tobacco control is significantly driven by a tobacco special interest effect.”

• Sambuddha Ghosh, Vinayak Tripathi (2012):

[5IE405, 5IE412] “Our model considers a majority election between two candidates—an ideologue committed to a fixed policy and an idealist who implements the ex post choice of the majority. Voters are aware that their individual rankings of policies may change after the election according to common or idiosyncratic shocks. We show that in equilibrium the ideologue often beats the idealist, even when this choice hurts all voters. Inefficiency arises both for sincere and for strategic voters; we also show that it is more pervasive in the latter case. Groups may be inflexible even when each individual has a preference for flexibility.”

• Lindsay Orchowski et al. (2012):

“The prevalence of alcohol-related regretted sex in college students warrants a better understanding of the characteristics of students who report such experiences. Therefore, the present study examined correlates of regretted sexual experiences involving alcohol use among 2 specific high-risk college student samples: students mandated to alcohol intervention (n = 522) and volunteer 1st-year students transitioning to college (n = 481). Results indicated that alcohol-related regretted sex occurred at similar rates in mandated and volunteer students, with approximately 25% of the students reporting at least 1 occurrence in the past month. Women were more likely to report alcohol-related regretted sex compared with men. The belief that alcohol use would result in “liquid courage” was associated with alcohol-related regretted sex among college students, even after accounting for greater alcohol use and problem alcohol use behaviors. These findings have significant implications for intervention efforts and future research. “

• Dan Black et al. (2012):

“We examine Becker’s (1960) contention that children are “normal.” For the cross section of non-Hispanic white married couples in the U.S., we show that when we restrict comparisons to similarly-educated women living in similarly-expensive locations, completed fertility is positively correlated with the husband’s income. The empirical evidence is consistent with children being “normal.” In an effort to show causal effects, we analyze the localized impact on fertility of the mid-1970s increase in world energy prices-an exogenous shock that substantially increased men’s incomes in the Appalachian coal-mining region. Empirical evidence for that population indicates that fertility increases in men’s income.”

• Drew Fudenberg et al. (2012):

[5IE312] “We reexamine the effects of the anchoring manipulation of Ariely, Loewenstein, and Prelec (2003) on the evaluation of common market goods and find very weak anchoring effects. We perform the same manipulation on the evaluation of binary lotteries, and find no anchoring effects at all. This suggests limits on the robustness of anchoring effects.”

• Ian Larkin, Stephen Leider (2012):

[5IE412] “We investigate how the convexity of a firm’s incentives interacts with worker overconfidence to affect sorting decisions and performance. We demonstrate, experimentally, that overconfident employees are more likely to sort into a nonlinear incentive scheme over a linear one, even though this reduces pay for many subjects and despite the presence of clear feedback. Additionally, the linear scheme attracts demotivated, underconfident workers who perform below their ability. Our findings suggest that firms may design incentive schemes that adapt to the behavioral biases of employees to “sort in” (“sort away”) attractive (unattractive) employees; such schemes may also reduce a firm’s wage bill.”

• Zoltan Dienes et al. (2012):

[5IE413] “Background  We introduce a method for quickly determining the rate of implicit learning. Methodology/Principal Findings  The task involves making a binary prediction for a probabilistic sequence over 10 minutes; from this it is possible to determine the influence of events of a different number of trials in the past on the current decision. This profile directly reflects the learning rate parameter of a large class of learning algorithms including the delta and Rescorla-Wagner rules. To illustrate the use of the method, we compare a person with amnesia with normal controls and we compare people with induced happy and sad moods. Conclusions/Significance  Learning on the task is likely both associative and implicit. We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that both amnesia and also transient negative moods can be associated with an especially large learning rate: People with amnesia can learn quickly and happy people slowly.”

• Mylène Riva, Sarah Curtis (2012):

[5IE415] “Background Although long-term trends in local labour market conditions are likely to influence health, few studies have assessed whether this is so. This paper examines whether (1) trends in local employment rates have relevance for mortality and morbidity outcomes in England and (2) trends are stronger predictors of these outcomes than employment rates measured at one point in time.  Methods Using latent class growth models, local areas were classified into eight groups following distinct trends in employment rates between 1981 and 2008. Areas were also categorised in ‘octile’ groups by rank of employment rates in 2001. These area groupings were linked to a sample of 207 959 individuals from the Office of National Statistics Longitudinal Study. Associations between area groupings and risk of all-cause mortality and of reporting a limiting long-term illness at the end of the period were measured using logistic regression. Models were adjusted for individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics measured in 1981 and for their residential mobility between 1981 and 2001.  Results Compared to areas with continuously high employment rates over the period, risk of mortality and morbidity was higher in areas with persistently low or declining employment rates. Findings suggest that long-term trends in local employment rates are useful as predictors of mortality and morbidity differences. These are not so clearly distinguished by only considering employment rates at one point in time.  Conclusion Poor health outcomes are associated with long-term economic disadvantage in some areas of England, reflected in employment rates, underlining the importance of efforts to improve health in areas with especially ‘deep-seated’ deprivation.”